Vice News Tonight

Vice News Tonight is Vice Media’s new nightly news program that launched October 10th on HBO where it will air every weeknight. As with the show’s promotional material, the first two episodes use Founders Grotesk (and only Founders Grotesk) for everything from segment intros to name titling, info graphics, and more.

While the normal and condensed styles of Founders get the most prominent use, there are also occasional appearances from the Mono styles, as well as an outlined stylization.

As with The Daily — the ill-fated news app that also featured Founders Grotesk prominently — there is room for improvement with some of the typographic details of Vice News Tonight. For example, some of the smaller type used for captions, info graphics, etc would benefit from extra spacing and a slight reduction in weight to help prevent letters and words from filling in on themselves, especially in the less-than-ideal environment of television screens. The Text styles of Founders Grotesk, optimized for smaller sizes, are an obvious choice to help in that regard — an option that wasn’t available to The Daily, which launched before Founders Grotesk Text was released.

There are other small issues, like tabular numerals being used for large graphics where proportional numerals would be preferrable, or incosistent employment of ligatures, but as the show continues production beyond just the first two episodes, these kinds of details will likely improve.

Overall, the strict reliance on Founders for all graphics gives the program a cohesive and distinctly bold feeling that is a welcome departure from the cluttered screens and overly flashy graphics of most network news programs. Despite the minimal type color palettes and stark graphic stylization, the show’s designers are able to push the typography to help tell stories about an extremely wide variety of topics.